Tournaments

At the recent Sussex Rising Stars Tournament held at the Dolphin Centre, Haywards Heath, eight of our players entered with four coming away with 6 medals in different categories.

Blake Hawkins – U13 – Boys Singles (County) Gold Medallist and U15 – Boys Doubles (County) Bronze Medallist

Elisabeth Hutchins – U13-Girls Singles (County) Gold Medallist and U13-Girls Doubles (County) Gold Medallist

Elsie Byrant – U13-Girls Singles (non-County) Gold Medallist

Tai Zhan Phoa – U11 Boys Singles (non-County) Bronze Medallist

After being given a really tough draw against the Number 2 seed and finishing 3^rd in his group – Blake managed to recover extremely well and made it all the way to the final of the plate where he managed to gain the Boys Singles Plate Silver Medal.’

Blake with hard earned Silver Plate Medal

Current and former ESJBA players featured in recent County Restricted Tournaments
played over the weekend of 21/22nd September

The following players reached these positions:

U18 Boys Singles: Max Warren came 3rd, Cameron Matthews came 4th

U18 Boys Doubles: Cameron Matthews and partner were runners up (2nd), Max warren & partner came 3rd and Ryan Burdett with Thomas Neville came 4th

U14 Boys Doubles: Jacob Williams and partner were runners up (2nd)

U16 Boys Doubles: Harindu Nettikumara and partner came 3rd.

In the Senior Restricted on 28/29 Sept Eloise Matthews came 3rd in the ladies singles.

Well done ESJBA players at the recent Mid Sussex Junior Tournament.

Elizabeth Collis for winning the U10 Girls Singles, Elizabeth & Amber Seymour– Winners-U10 Girls Doubles

Oliver Williams Runner Up in the Boys U14 Singles (Main event) & Aaron Du Feu Runner Up in the U14 Boys Singles(Plate)

Ryan Burdett & Tristan Hyland-Runners Up U16 Boys Doubles, Georgia Thomas-Winner U16 Girls Singles,

Katie Crouch, Abbey Spencer, Zara Hyland for taking 1st, 2nd & third positions in U18 Girls Singles and finally

Katie & Abbey-Winners U18 Girls Doubles, and Zara & Georgia –Runners Up-U18 Girls Doubles.

Well done to all the players representing ESJBA.

Over 60 players, parents and friends joined our Annual Christmas fun Day at Heathfield Leisure Centre at the weekend. The day started with everyone being paired up with either their mum, dad or friend and placed in strength related groups. Each group had to play against all the other pairs in their group to determine the winners. After two hours of entertaining badminton, we got five winning pairs and runner’s ups. In some of the games there appeared to be more determination from the parents than their siblings!

Presentations were made to all the winners and also additional prizes were made to the parent and player with the most festive outfits. This was a strongly contested event as many had made a real effort to impress. The final choices and prizes were given to Donna Lynam (parent) and Georgia Thomas (player). The morning concluded with refreshments provided by the Association where parents/players and coaches were able to mix and discuss the merits of their performances.

This was possibly our most successful Christmas Fun Day to date and was orchestrated mainly by Eastbourne Coach, Martin Bilton for managing the games and Heathfield Coach, Nick Saunders, for organising the refreshments on the day.

Sunday 18th saw the 15th Annual East Sussex Junior Championships. Originally ran in March each year, the tournament moved to November to avoid the busy calendar of the new year. This is the third one held at Hailsham Community College, with its excellent facilities especially the viewing gallery for parents. This event is aimed at those players who are not selected for the County teams. Once more the tournament ran to a very tight schedule, finishing fifteen minutes ahead of time due to some cancelled games down to injuries. We had a total of 43 entrants from across East Sussex. 32/11 boys/girls. A total of 119 games were played over eight hours.

The morning session was for the U11 & U13 age groups plus an U18 Mixed Doubles group. In the afternoon it was the turn of the U15 and U18 age groups. The results were that 40 out of 46 of the trophies were taken by players from the ESJBA squads. Again there was a much smaller entry in the younger age groups with girls only playing in the U11 Unisex Singles. This highlights the enormous shortage of girls playing the sport

Presentations were made by William Brown, Chairman of East Sussex Badminton.

Winners and runner-ups for the tournament were-

Sunday 13^th saw the 14^th Annual East Sussex Junior Championships.  The event moved to Hailsham Community College, with its excellent facilities especially the viewing gallery for parents.  This event is aimed at those players who are not selected for the County teams.  Once more the tournament ran to a very tight schedule and only ran over schedule by 30 minutes.  We had a total of 37 entrants from across East Sussex. 28/9 boys/girls.  A total of 96 games were played over eight hours.

Presentations were made by William Brown, Chairman of East Sussex Badminton.  This was also the sixth year of presenting the Kevin Marquiss Award, made in honour of Kevin, one of the Association’s founders who sadly passed away eight years ago with cancer.  This year it was awarded to Alice Archer (Rye) one of our U15 players.  This award is made from all the squad coaches’ nominations, combining their players and based upon attendance, attitude, ability and personality.

The morning session was for the U11 & U13 age groups plus an U17 Mixed doubles group.  In the afternoon it was the turn of the U15 and U17 age groups.  The results were that 23 out of 32 of the trophies were taken by players from the ESJBA squads.  This year there was a much smaller entry across all ages with still an enormous shortage lack of girls playing the sport.

This event is organised as a 4-way team competition in two age groups; U15 and U18.  Badminton clubs from across Sussex were invited and teams from ESJBA, Worthing Juniors, Felbridge BC and St Johns BC entered.  The event is styled on the ex-NBL competition where each team of 6 (3 boys and 3 girls) plays one match against the other 3 teams with the result being decided as the best of 5 games – boy’s and girl’s singles, mixed doubles and boy’s and girl’s doubles.  To increase the tension the teams can use a “power play” shuttle in each game to claim 2 points if they win a chosen point.

The event as always provided some exciting and competitive badminton.  ESJBA had teams in both age groups, and this year, proved a little too strong for the other teams, winning all their matches.  Trophies were awarded to the winning teams who will be asked back next season to defend their trophy!   A special thanks to the coaches and helpers from WJ, St Johns and Felbridge/Forest for their help on the day and making the event so enjoyable for the players involved. Any clubs wishing to take part please contact us for details of this annual event.

U15 Winners – ESJBA (Tom Wilkieson, Harry Southern, Tristan Hyland, Alice Archer, Alice Shephard, Grace Tye)

U15 Runners Up –  Worthing Juniors (James Colcombe, Josh Farley, Drew Hammersley, Yohansa Bandaranayake, Mille Whiteside, Lily Wingrove)

U18 Winners – ESJBA #1 (Jessica Newberry, Sahara Moshref, Abbey Spencer, Alex Pusey, Bradley Lynam, Matt Laing)

U15-17 Runners Up – ESJBA #2 (Zara Hyland, Georgia Thomas, Grace Shephard, Nathan Davidson, Ryan Burdett, Mark Saunders)

On Sunday morning 17^th December, over 60 players including parents swooped into the Heathfield Leisure Centre for our annual Pre-Christmas ‘fun-day’.  Teams comprised of player and parent or coach and were formed into four groups, each having to play everyone in their group with an overall group winner.  We saw parents, grandparents, ex-members and even friends of the players taking part and thoroughly enjoying a morning of mixed play.  Games were very competitive – mostly from the parents, and there was an abundance of seasonal jumpers and headgear supported by all.

Presentations were made by William Brown, Chairman of the Association, with refreshments organised by Anita Saunders, the treasurer, for all to partake and celebrate another good year with the coaches and committee members.

The pictures show some of the group winners alongside Best Christmas Jumper winners Elizabeth and Ryan.

Sunday 12^th saw the 13^th Annual East Sussex Junior Championships.  Once more the event was held at the 6-court University of Brighton Sports Centre, Falmer.  This event is aimed at those players who are not selected for the County teams.  Once more the tournament ran to a very tight schedule and managed to complete ahead of schedule.  We had a total of 44 entrants from across East Sussex. 34/8 boys/girls.  A total of 225 games were played over 7½ hours.

Presentations were made by William Brown, Chairman of East Sussex Badminton.  This was also the fifth year of presenting the Kevin Marquiss Award, made in honour of Kevin, one of the Association’s founders who sadly passed away eight years ago with cancer.  This year it was awarded to Parisé Lockwood (Heathfield) one of our U18 players.  This award is made from all the squad coaches’ nominations, combining their players and based upon attendance, attitude, ability and personality.

The morning session was for the U11 & U13 age groups plus an U15 Mixed doubles group.  In the afternoon it was the turn of the U15 and U18 age groups.  The results were that 24 out of 39 of the trophies were taken by players from the ESJBA squads.  Once more we saw a much larger entry in the middle aged groups with a considerably low number of U11’s coming through and an enormous lack of girls across the board.  The U18 Girl’s featured Charlotte Foord, from St. Leonards-on-Sea, who has entered every year since 2011 and consistently won a trophy every year. We also saw the return of Dhanush Thiagaraj from Stonecross, for the second year, who also first appeared in 2011 but ‘missed out’ for two years due to his selection into the County Squads.

Winners and runner-ups for the tournament were: –

With our annual organiser, Martin lying on a beach in sunnier climes, the task of organising this year’s event was taken on by former Chairman, Bruce and assistant coach, Rosa. Once more the turnout was excellent with over 30, players and parents taking part, alongside coaches and committee members.

Group winners were:  Curtis + Dad (Stuart) Photo-bombed by younger brother; Lekham + Dad; Pritvit + Dad; Bradley + Dad (Glenn)

Winners of the Christmas Jumpers were:-  Lara + Jack Hammond (Quite honestly it was Rosa’s own that was best).It was also birthdays for Alex Neesam + Curtis Lynam, so special cakes were presented to a round of choral greetings.

It was only last year that Rosa was a member of the U18 squad and already assisting at the other squads, this year she has been assisting Martin in Eastbourne and now becoming an active member of the committee with running our Christmas event. Well done Rosa.